Communauto Introduces 100% Electric Car Sharing Service in Montreal

Communauto, the oldest car sharing service in North America, has introduced a 100% electric one-way car sharing pilot program in the Montreal borough of Le Plateau-Mont-Royal called Auto-mobile. One-way car sharing allows users to pick up a vehicle at one point and take it another destination without having to return it. Twenty vehicles will be introduced to the borough for one-way car sharing. The reason behind the pilot program is to analyze the benefits and impacts of one-way car sharing and if the program proves successful, more vehicles will be added to the fleet.

Benoit Robert, CEO of Communauto, says one-way car sharing is meant to be supplementary and not in competition with existing sustainable modes of transportation like taxis, the STM (public transit), BIXI (bike sharing) and car sharing with reservation. In fact, Communauto subscribers can use their transit card, the OPUS, to register for the car sharing system. Once registered with Auto-mobile, subscribers can swipe their transit card on the vehicle and take it away. People can use the Communauto website to locate a nearby vehicle. Soon, even people who are not subscribers of Communauto will be able to take advantage of the Auto-mobile service.

The borough of Le Plateau-Mont-Royal is thrilled to have been chosen for the pilot project, so much so that they are offering a universal parking permit for all Auto-mobile electric vehicles. This means that users can park in any legal parking space in the borough for free. But besides free parking, Communauto will cost subscribers 38 cents a minute or $12 an hour, with a $50 per day option. There is a discount rate good until July 5th of 10 cents a minute or $6 an hour.